1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a player for playing a recording medium having a MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) format signal recorded thereon as subcodes of a CD format.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known a system, which has a musical instrument such as a synthesizer, an electronic piano or a rhythm machine, connected together to exchange information therebetween for enjoyment of musical tones. The MIDI standard has been set as the international standard for such information exchange.
There has also been known a player which plays a recording medium on which a MIDI format signal bearing music information according to the MIDI standard is recorded, thereby acquiring a MIDI format signal serving as a control signal for playing a musical instrument. The MIDI format signal includes a channel message signal and a system message signal. The channel message signal is a command signal for supplying to a musical instrument with a playing manner command determining tone, length, strength of a sound to be produced. On the other hand, the system message signal is an information signal carrying thereon control information for the whole system without respect to any channel. Subcodes bearing play control information are recorded on a recording medium, such as a disk, e.g., a CD, CD-V, or LD (Laser Disk) carrying thereon a video signal as well as audio information in the form of the CD format, or a DAT (Digital Audio Tape). Each subcode in the CD format consists of eight channels, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W, the first two channels, P and Q, being used as control signals for a recording medium player.
The other six channels, R to W, are so-called user's bits which may be exploited for transferring graphics information. These channels may be used as the aforementioned MIDI format signal, the standard for which has already been proposed.
A conventional decoder which decodes such a subcode to acquire a MIDI format signal has an output port structure for a single system. Since the information transfer rate according to the MIDI standard is lower than the subcode transfer rate according to the standard for the afore- mentioned CD, LD and so forth, the data transfer speed is restricted, thus requiring a wasted time. Further, when multiple MIDI devices are to be used, the conventional serial connection of those MIDI devices undesirably increases the amount of a delay between the MIDI devices to be controlled.